URGENT - Haspel says CIA should not have conducted interrogation program

(CNN) -- Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump's pick to be the next CIA director, says in a new letter that the CIA sh...

Posted: May 15, 2018 3:06 PM

Updated: May 15, 2018 3:06 PM

(CNN) -- Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump's pick to be the next CIA director, says in a new letter that the CIA should not have conducted then-President George W. Bush's interrogation and detention program where waterboarding and other brutal interrogation tactics were used on detainees.
In the letter to Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Haspel takes a position she wasn't willing to state publicly last week, writing that the interrogation program "is not one the CIA should have undertaken."
"While I won't condemn those that made these hard calls, and I have noted the valuable intelligence collected, the program ultimately did damage to our officers and our standing in the world," Haspel wrote in the letter, which was obtained by CNN. "With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken."

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